8/11/2019 Abstract to Essay on Hume

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An Instrumental EpistemologyAnalogous to Newtons gravity on external bodies, is Humes custom in the operations of

the mind. We pretend not to have given the ultimate reasonof such a propensity[custom]. We only point outa principle of human nature(emphasis added). This

describingrather than explainingcharacterizes Humes epistemology. Unlike Locke, still

looking for the ultimate springs and principlesof the mind, Humes more modest goalis to resolve the many particular effects into a few general causes.Thus to reconcileHumes positive with his negative aim, I argue that Humes skepticism concerning

ultimate causes and his naturalism concerning the human understanding should be seenas

Instrumental Epistemology.

Explaining custom

After surveying what he believes to be all of the possible kinds of evidence that serve as abasis for our belief that the future will be conformable to the past, Humes solution is

custom. Hume instrumentally postulates as a principle of human nature, just as gravity is

a principle of external bodies, that the force of custom is a fundamental mechanism ofhuman understanding. His description of custom, is sensible to the principle itself. That

is, Hume is aware that his idea of custom is derived solely on the basis of custom.

Nothing can be known to be the cause of another but by experience. We can give noreason for extending to the future our experience of the past; but are entirely determined

by custom, when we conceive an effect to follow from its usual cause. (Emphasis added)

Dennett uses the example of how there is nothing intrinsically sweet in sugar to explain

this seemingly counterintuitive position. It seems as if the experience of sweetness is

caused by the glucose molecules in sugar. If we examine the glucose molecule however,

there is nothing sweet about it. The statement, Sugar causes the experience of sweetness,therefore we like it is incorrect. It is rather the case that, Because we like sugar, it

causes the experience of sweetness. Glucose is high in energy, and so the brain is wired

up to experience sweetness from sugar; there is nothing intrinsically sweet in glucose.

The necessity of any action, whether of matter or of mind, is not, properly speaking, a

quality in the agent, but in any thinking or intelligent being, who may consider the action

Causation therefore, does not really exist external to the mind. Rather the mind projects

its experience of causation on to external objects just like we project the experience of

sweetness on to sugar. That was Humes great insight! We cannot know essences. Thus,Humes epistemology limits its principles to instruments of explanation.

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Hume on Meaning and Concepts.What stood out from theMoral Enquiry, was the phrase a more lively sympathy.The

word livelythen conveys to mind Humes discussion of belief in theEpistemological

Enquiry, belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of

an object.A similar situation arises with vivacity used to distinguish belief from fantasy

as well as Ideas from Impressions.I propose that, in accordance with Humes atomistic approach to ideas, in whichcomplex ideas [are] nothing but an enumeration ofthoseparts or simple ideas,belief

and sympathy are complex ideas containing the idea of liveliness as one of their

constituent simples. Also, by employing the same words to describe apparently differentphenomena, Hume sets up semantic fields in which complex ideas participate in a shared

meaning network. This creates another level of complexity in the compounding of ideas.

Compound ideas are not only made of simples, but share some of their parts with one

another. In this manner, every compound idea is somehow connected to other compoundideas that share a common semantic ground. Such is the case with the distinctions

between impressions-ideas and belief-reveries. This not only is consistent, but necessary

to the constructive aim of the enquiry, which is to resolve the many particular effectsinto a few general causes.This reading strengthens Humes anti-essentialist instrumental

position because it acknowledges that the different operations of the mind share common

groundsa position widely accepted among the neuroscience community I must add.

I argue that it is also consistent with the purpose of the Enquiry, written as apedagogical work of philosophy. In the introductory discussion, Hume proposes a third

species of philosophy, one to mitigate the abstruseness of metaphysics and the largely

unproductive easy philosophy. This third Different Species of Philosophyis aprominent theme throughout Humes work. I argue that Hume is proposing that rather

than seeing Human Understanding as categorized within discrete boundaries as the

essentialists would, these categories should be defined instrumentally, orchestrated with

all the other aspects of the mind. Hume know(s) that a human body is a mightycomplicated machine,and thus in order to make his philosophy accessible must draw

certain lines where no such clear-cut lines exist. Such is the case of the distinction

between impression and ideas. I contend that this is for a pedagogical purpose, and thatsuch clear boundaries drawn between concepts can be replaced by a visualization of

Humes concepts as participating in networks of simple ideas embeddedwithin complex

ideas which are further embedded within semantic fields.